As the basketball season came to a close a few days ago, the
Miami Heat walked off the court in San Antonio with black and white confetti
raining down. For the first time in 706 days, the Miami Heat could not be
called NBA Champions. That title now belongs to the San Antonio Spurs.
With the loss, it pushed LeBron James’ NBA Finals record to
a dismal 2-3. There is no way that being in the Finals doesn’t result in
altering a superstar’s legacy. And losing this one does affect LeBron’s legacy.
Now, people always want to hate on LeBron and act like he’s
the villain. He knows it, even recently claiming himself to be the “easiest
target in sports” and he might just be right. And that seems kind of unfair for
a guy who has never been arrested, is always about the team and works extremely
hard behind the scenes. LeBron is a great role model, yet still gets crucified
all over social media.
Many point to LeBron’s decision to have “The Decision” as
the primary reason for their hate toward the superstar. In reality, that was a
mistake even James acknowledged. As far as teaming up with two All-Stars in
Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, it’s hard to blame him after seeing how badly Dan
Gilbert was positioning LeBron in Cleveland.
However, after all of that, James went to the Finals in
every year he wore a Miami Heat uniform. He won two of them, and played like an
MVP for the better part of three of them (all except vs. Dallas). However, vs.
San Antonio, his supporting cast failed him. Badly. Some people have a hard
time finding sympathy for James since he was the one that decided he wanted
this supporting cast, and that may be a valid point. But LeBron played well in
the loss to the Spurs and would have been the series MVP had the Heat won.
However, 2-3 in the Finals can’t be overlooked. In my
estimation, losing this year in the Finals pretty much seals the deal on how
high LeBron can go on the all time list. The highest he can go, in my opinion,
is number 2. I don’t think he can ever surpass Michael Jordan, who appeared in 6
NBA Finals, won all of them and took home the series MVP trophy in all of them.
The main reason I believe that is because at 29, I don’t think LeBron has it in
him to be the driving force to winning four more championships. It took him
five tries just to bring home two. Also,
I think it is clear that LeBron does lack that “killer instinct” that Jordan
had, and even Kobe Bryant. He may have some assassin in him, but not to the
level of those two.
In comparing LeBron to another sport, I see him as the equivalent
of Peyton Manning, who also got blown out in a championship game earlier this
year. I don’t think Peyton can ever rank above the likes of Joe Montana and Tom
Brady, but he can go as high as the third best ever in NFL history. Like
LeBron, Peyton lacks the killer will that is seen in Brady today and Montana
possessed.
Saying LeBron can’t be the greatest ever is not really all
that bad. Michael Jordan is as high as a standard as any in sports. But 2-3 is
not all time greatness. And although LeBron lacked a supporting cast in the
2007 one vs. the Spurs and this past one, the Dallas one was on him. And some
may say Ray Allen helped Lebron’s legacy in a monumental way last year in Game
6 after LeBron had two horrific late game turnovers. Michael Jordan never lost
a Finals because of himself. He never lost a NBA Finals ever.
So unless LeBron is able to win four more rings, and do so
without trying to team up with every superstar in the league, it’s hard for me
to say that he can ever be mentioned in the same breath as His Airness.
